


Twatting the President

by TheFandomLesbian



Series: Spencer's Raulson One-Shots [59]
Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Asylum
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bananun, Comedy, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Established Relationship, F/F, Family, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, raulson - Freeform, set in to light and guard universe but can be read independently, tlag universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23470444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFandomLesbian/pseuds/TheFandomLesbian
Summary: The year is 2018. Retired telejournalist and author Lana Winters lives at home with her wife, Mary Eunice. But Lana has had enough with the American government. She knows the way to communicate her distress is to get online. So, struggling with her memory problems, Lana enlists the help of her blind wife and teenage granddaughter to boot up her computer and send the President a twat from the elusive social media website, Tweeter.
Relationships: Sister Mary Eunice/Lana Winters
Series: Spencer's Raulson One-Shots [59]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1214643
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	Twatting the President

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aisaka Rayla](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Aisaka+Rayla).



> For a Bananun prompt: "You can stay the night, if you want."
> 
> PLEASE do not read this if you are a Trump supporter or if you will find this story inflammatory. It is not my intention to offend anyone, only to entertain. 
> 
> Also, if you are enjoying my works, please leave a comment! It can be so hard to stay motivated without encouragement, especially now that the archive is no longer recording hits from guest viewers. If you are reading on the archive without an account, please hit that little kudos button and let the author know you're there!

Lana made the realization as she watched the great orange buffoon on the television holding out his fingers in the shape of an O, gesturing with each misplaced word, that she needed to do something. Of course, she had thought she had needed to do something from the moment of his inauguration—and she had. Together with Mary Eunice, they had attended all of the marches and the protests, which frankly was quite tiresome for a couple of geriatrics who preferred to spend their days indoors having tame sex and watching  _ Matlock _ and  _ In the Heat of the Night _ on tapes. 

But she needed to do something more. Walking out wasn’t enough these days. The world had changed from when she was at her most political. The year was 2018. The new way to reach the masses rested in the depths of her dusty desktop computer, which loaded Windows 95 at the speed of a tortoise. Indeed, if she wanted to make her statement to the president of the United States, she needed to get online. 

Blowing dust from the screen of her computer, she took it by the mouse and rattled it alive. It flashed an icon at her. “Oh, bother.”  _ Another password? _ Lana’s memory wasn’t the best these days. “Mary Eunice?” she called. “Sunshine? What’s the password for us to get into the computer?” She smelled something cooking in the kitchen. “Hey—don’t set anything on fire, now.” She did remember quite vividly that Mary Eunice’s vision was starting to go; she remembered it mostly because of a car accident that had broken her collarbone and Mary Eunice’s right arm when she ran a red light a little more five three years ago. The incident had cost her her license and led to a diagnosis of severe age-related macular degeneration, irreversible from the number of years she had ignored her vision loss and passed it off as a regular side effect of aging.

“It’s safe, cupcake, it’s just spaghetti.” Mary Eunice headed into Lana’s office, bringing her a bowl of spaghetti. She had red splatters all the way down her apron. “You know I don’t know anything about that thing. I can’t see it anymore.” She had enjoyed playing Solitaire on the computer before she had gone almost completely blind, but now, she had nothing to gain from it. Her old Bible was traded for a cassette audiobook. “Thomas got me into it the last time I needed it, but I couldn’t find anything, and then there were all these weird things popping up flashing on the screen, so I just turned it off.” Lana blew a sigh, blowing her gray hair up out of her eyes. “What are you doing on it, anyway?” 

Lana tilted her head. “I’m gonna twat the president.” Mary Eunice made a face. “You know, that one website? Tweeter? I’m gonna send him a twat. I’ve got it all written up—” She started to hold up her notebook, which had several pages of grievances. “Oh, right, you can’t read any of that. Anyway, what’s our password?”

Mary Eunice pulled up the stool beside Lana’s computer chair and sat down. “Usually we use my birthday.” After all, Mary Eunice’s birthday was a novelty for her—she hadn’t gotten to enjoy it for the first twenty-seven years of her life. 

Lana punched in the password,  _ April281937. _ It didn’t open up. “Nope.”

“Hm… Try your birthday.”

Lana’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. She started to type, but then she shook her head and backspaced, muttering under her breath. She started again, but again stopped herself. “What’s my birthday?” she finally asked. 

A soft chuckle left Mary Eunice’s lips. She placed a placating hand on Lana’s shoulder. “October 15, 1931.” Lana tried it,  _ October151931. _ Again, the computer refused to open. “Maybe try one of those with a capital? Or without a capital?” Mary Eunice squinted her eyes and put on Lana’s reading glasses. They didn’t help. 

Lana took her glasses off of Mary Eunice’s face. “I need those.” She leaned forward. “Hm. Maybe I’m hitting the wrong buttons. You try.” She got out of the computer chair and nudged Mary Eunice out of the stool. 

“Me? Lana, I  _ can’t read the screen, _ how am I supposed to do anything?” Still, Mary Eunice sank into the desk chair. “Give me those glasses, then.” She held out her hand, and Lana put the glasses in her palm. “Maybe… Who set up this password?” Lana shrugged. She couldn’t remember  _ getting _ the computer, let alone setting it up. “It was probably Thomas or Julia.” Mary Eunice licked her chapped lips. “I don’t know. They wouldn’t have made it something we can’t remember, would’ve they?” She leaned over the keyboard, trying to make out the letters. She had never learned how to type, even on a typewriter, which made this whole situation much more difficult for her. “Where’s the A? No, wait, I see it—where’s the P?”

Lana tilted her head. “The P is next to the O, the round one—no, no, that’s the I. The P is on the  _ other side _ of the O. C’mon, I already tried this—”

“I’m looking for an L—Oh, I think I see it, below the O!” The fact that Mary Eunice could see anything was a miracle to both of them. 

“Okay, the numbers are the top row. The two is right next to the—”

“The numbers are in numeric order. I think I can figure that out.” 

“Oh, right.” Mary Eunice tried,  _ april2837. _ It didn’t work. Then, with a similar struggle of navigating the keyboard, she tried,  _ october1531. _ The screen rolled and began to load. “Aha! Thank you.” Lana gave Mary Eunice a warm kiss. “I just needed somebody who wasn’t an octogenarian to get it up and running for me, that was all.”

A quiet chuckle left Mary Eunice’s nose. “I turned eighty last year, cupcake,” she reminded Lana patiently. She gave a reassuring pat to the back of Lana’s hand. 

Dark brows furrowed with concern and confusion. “You did?” Mary Eunice nodded. “Was I there?” She nodded again. “Did we do something big?” 

Mary Eunice laughed. “Yes, we did. Thomas and Susan and all of the kids came, and so did Julia and Terry. We had a big ice cream cake. They got me some fancy things to help me knit since my eyes are so bad now. I made you that scarf by the back door, on the coat rack. You always wear it when it’s chilly outside.”

“Yeah, I do.” Lana pursed her lips. “But wait—did we miss it this year?”

“No, it’s March. My birthday is in April.” 

Lana nodded. “Right. I know what time of year it is. Last month was February, with the shooting in Florida. That’s why we’re mad, and that’s why I’m gonna twat the president. See, I’ve still got it. It’s just all the dates blend together. These will be, what, our fifty-something birthdays together. We can only have so many unique, memorable birthdays.”

Mary Eunice chuckled. “You don’t have to defend yourself to me, Lana. I’m blind. I’m hardly in a position to judge.” She patted Lana’s knee. The doorbell rang. “I’ll get that.” Mary Eunice kissed Lana’s temple and gave her the reading glasses and went to the front door, opening it as she squinted at the blurred figure before her. Tilting her head, she peeked out of the corner of her eye, trying to dodge her numerous blind spots and focus on the person. The fuzzy shape grew a little more distinct. “Oh, Ella! What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in school?” 

The teenager, Thomas’s youngest daughter, strutted into the house with a sigh. “Hey, Mimi. Some moron brought a gun to school and nobody could come get me, so Dad told me to walk here. It was only a few blocks. Where’s Granny?”

“Oh, sweetheart, that’s terrible.” Mary Eunice went in for her hug from Ella. “Lana’s trying to fix the computer. She’s going to send the president a twat.” Ella’s face twisted in discomfort. “That isn’t the right word, is it?” 

“It—It most certainly is  _ not _ ,” Ella said.

_ I figured.  _ Mary Eunice had a very tenuous grasp on any of the things happening in the modern world of technology. She had just gotten a good handle on how to work her cassette tape audiobooks, and now those were already obsolete. “She has a list of grievances. Like what happened at your school, she wants to tell the president to make sure that stuff stops.” 

Ella nodded. “Cool, that makes sense.”

“Who is it?” Lana called from her office. 

“It’s me, Granny.” Ella put down her backpack safely out of the way where Mary Eunice wouldn’t trip over it. “What are you doing on the computer? You’re never on the computer.” She headed into the office where Lana was waiting patiently for the rolling grass and blue sky background to appear. 

“I’m going to twat the president, as soon as the computer loads.”

Ella giggled. “I think you mean you’re going to  _ tweet _ the president.”

“Tweet, twat, same thing.”

“Not the same thing, Granny.” The sky backdrop over the fields finally shimmered onto the screen. “Boy, this computer is so old, it’s basically a typewriter. When did Dad put this in for you? It must’ve been more than a decade ago.”

Mary Eunice placed her loving hands on Lana’s shoulders and massaged them. “We can’t remember. We were lucky to come up with the password between the two of us.” Lana reached up behind her to touch Mary Eunice’s hands, giving them a gentle squeeze. “Do we know how to bring up the worldwide web?” 

“Yes—no. Maybe. Is it still the blue one?” Lana asked Ella, looking back at her. 

Ella nodded. “And we don’t call it the worldwide web anymore. That died in the nineties.” 

“My desire to keep up with modern technology died long before then,” Lana grumbled. She double-clicked on the extra large Internet Explorer icon. The pointer transformed into a round loading circle as it processed the request ever so slowly. She caressed Mary Eunice’s hands. “No more often than we use it, I think this is more than sufficient.” She waited as the window gradually rose up to the screen. It was white. The Google logo appeared. 

The pop ups followed. Lana propelled herself back from the screen with a shriek, rolling the chair over Mary Eunice’s toes. “Ouch, Lana!” Mary Eunice stumbled back. “I told you there were popups!” 

Lana covered up her mouth in shock. “Get rid of it! Get rid of it!” She waved her hands frantically to Ella. Ella took the computer by the mouse, but she shuddered with laughter. “Why is that on my computer? I didn’t even search for Twatter yet!”

“What is it?” Mary Eunice asked, squinting at the colors, unable to make out any shapes.

“Your computer is covered in dicks, Mimi.” Ella knelt down in front of the desk, clicking the X in every box. Every time one vanished, a new one appeared to replace it. “Gross—”

Lana covered Ella’s eyes. “Don’t look! Your father’s going to kill us.”

“Okay, Granny, you can either cover my eyes, or I can try to fix the computer.” Lana uncovered her eyes. Ella kept crossing out the popups, giant penises assaulting her at every turn. There were penises of all colors, some wearing condoms, some circumcised and others uncut, some by themselves and some with the model visible and some vanishing into a woman—or even a few gif-clips of a penis pounding into a man. Lana stared at the wall, her face crumpled up so she didn’t have to look. “You’ve got some kind of porn virus on your computer. Who used it last?”

Mary Eunice was, for the first time, very grateful she was blind. She could see nothing but color smears on the screen. “I did. But the popups kept getting in the way, so I just turned it off. I couldn’t see any of them, anyway.” She considered, tilting her head and worrying her lower lip. “If I had, I probably would’ve had someone take care of it before now.” 

Ella laughed. “Well, I would hope so.” She closed out the internet completely, unable to find the end of the sea of dicks that had flooded them on Internet Explorer. “See, you’re using Internet Explorer still, and you don’t have any malware protection on your computer, and you don’t have a screen reader, either. You probably clicked on something by accident that downloaded this virus.” 

“Just get rid of the penises, please, so I can twat the president!” Lana flapped her hands in disgust. 

“ _ Tweet, _ Granny,  _ tweet  _ the president.” 

“Oh my god, it doesn’t matter! I’m  _ old, _ I’m  _ forgetful, _ and I shouldn’t have to look at penises in my own home if I don’t want to!” Mary Eunice resumed rubbing Lana’s shoulders, deciding to forgive her for rolling the computer chair over her foot, though she hadn’t apologized for it. “Every time I see a penis, I think it’s the last time I’ll ever have to endure that, but inevitably, I end up seeing another one!”

Mary Eunice chuckled. “I’m quite glad I can’t see right now.”

Lana shot her a baleful look. “I envy you.” 

“Oh, cupcake, envy is a sin.” Lana rolled her eyes. “But can you fix it, Ella? At this point, I think the twatting—tweeting—twittering the president is a crusade, so there’s no point in trying to stop her. She’ll find a way.”

Ella shrugged. “I  _ can _ , but it’ll take awhile. Do you have anything important on the computer?” Lana and Mary Eunice exchanged a look. “I mean, pictures? Books? News articles? Anything you wanted to save?”

Lana shook her head. “No, we’re not techy enough for any of that nonsense. We get our pictures developed and put them in albums, like people used to do when pictures meant something.” 

Surprisingly, the teenager didn’t answer the jab. She nodded. “Okay. So I’m gonna reset your computer to factory settings—the way it was when you pulled it out of the box. And then I’ll talk to Dad about bringing over his thing to put a virus protector on it, so it doesn’t happen again. Then I’ll text my friends and find out about the best screen reader extension for Mimi, so it’ll tell her what she’s looking at before she clicks things, and I’ll get you Google Chrome or Firefox. Internet Explorer is just asking for trouble with these sorts of things. It’s going to be a few hours.” 

“Of course, honey, whatever it takes.” Mary Eunice patted Lana’s shoulder. “Lana, let her have the computer chair. There’s nothing you can do sitting in it staring.” Obediently, Lana stood from the chair and let Ella have it. She wheeled herself up close to it and fidgeted around through the settings, looking through things. The computer kept wheezing its little song, the fan kicking on and off in the motor. “Ella, sweetie, do you want something to eat?” She couldn’t have a grandchild over and  _ not _ feed them. They were lucky Ella was here; she hated to think of what could’ve happened if Lana had found the computer’s penises without a young person to fix it for her. 

“No, Mimi, I’m fine, thanks.” Ella kept on clicking around. The computer screen went black. “There. It’ll take awhile for it to do its thing. We can watch  _ Bonanza _ reruns, since I know you’re always up to date on that.” 

Lana grinned. “It looks so much better on a color television.”

They all sat on the couch, Mary Eunice absently messing with Lana’s hand as Lana flipped on the television and found her long stash of all of the recorded episodes of  _ Bonanza. _ Ella had her phone in hand. “Um, actually…” Mary Eunice looked at her, expecting her to ask to have something to eat. Instead, Ella asked, “Do you mind if I stay here with you guys for awhile? I mean, tonight?”

Mary Eunice frowned. “Yes, sweetie, you can stay the night if you want…” Ella still stared down at her cell phone. “Is everything alright, Ella?” 

Her dark eyes flitted up. “Oh, yeah, I guess. Mom and I have been arguing, that’s all. I don’t feel like going home to deal with her again. I just know she’s going to have a lot to say about what happened at school today. I’m tired of it.” She put her phone down facedown on the arm of the sofa and looked to the television screen where Lorne Greene rode his horse to the theme song. 

Lana tilted her head. She wouldn’t let it go that easily. “What do you mean, arguing?” she pressed. “What’s going on?” 

Ella shrugged. “I dunno. The usual, I guess… It’s been like this since the election.” She picked at her cuticles. Mary Eunice reached across the sofa to still her hand before it could draw blood, refusing to allow her to maintain the habit. “You know, since she voted for… for  _ him. _ I thought things would calm down, but instead, she’s just getting, I dunno, more hateful. And I’m sure once I see her again, she’s gonna have a whole bunch of things to shove down my throat about gun control, because of school.”

Lana’s brows knitted together. “School? What the hell happened at school?” She paused, and then she realized, “You should be at school  _ right now, _ why are you here?”

A quiet chuckle rose from Mary Eunice. “I told you she’s on a crusade,” she teased Ella. “The rest of the world might as well not exist right now. She’s got a dictatorship to topple on the Twatter.” 

“Twitter,” Ella corrected again. She ground her jaw. “Granny, don’t freak out.”

“I’m already freaking out. Did you drop out? You know what that will do to your future!”

“What, no! I’d never do that! College is the only way I’m ever going to get away from my mother.” Ella wiped her brow. Mary Eunice gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “No, um, just—somebody brought a gun to school today.”

“Somebody  _ what? _ ” Lana looked at Mary Eunice. “Did she tell you this?” Mary Eunice nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve dropped my twat the president thing—Tweet, I know, tweet, don’t tell me again. This is more important.”

Mary Eunice shrugged. “You were in the middle of a crusade. I didn’t want to interrupt. Besides, as soon as she walked in, you started harassing her for help on the computer, so she didn’t really get much of a chance to say much.”

Ella held up her hands. “It’s  _ fine. _ It wasn’t that big of a deal. I guess he took it out and was waving it around the cafeteria. I wasn’t even there. I always eat lunch in the band room. They got it away from him and it wasn’t loaded. But they had to cancel school for the rest of the day to clear the building of explosives and that sort of thing. It wasn’t that bad. Nobody got hurt or anything.” 

“Oh, if nobody got hurt, then that’s a different matter—Ella, are you insane? That’s  _ terrifying. _ You’re  _ seventeen, _ you shouldn’t consider it a good thing that somebody brought a deadly weapon to the place you have to go to learn just because the weapon wasn’t loaded.” Mary Eunice placed a hand on Lana’s thigh to try to placate her, giving her a pleading look. She didn’t have to see Lana’s enraged face to feel the fury and fear throbbing from her. “You’re a junior in high school. You should be worried about passing the SATs and getting accepted into a good school, not worried about whether or not you’ll be alive by the time three o’clock rolls around.” 

Staring down at the floor, Ella made eye contact with neither of them. She simply shrugged, making a noncommittal sound. “That’s life now.” Her voice was small and muted, betraying her fear, as much as her words claimed otherwise. “These days, we know who we’re willing to die for. We know which rooms have deadbolts and which ones don’t have windows to bust in. They teach us which objects we can use as weapons and how to swarm an intruder all at once, bring them down. They don’t tell you to hide under things anymore.” She licked her lips. Her jaw shifted with discomfort. “That’s the way the world is. It’s not just about getting into a good college. It’s about getting out of high school alive, too.” 

Giving Ella’s hand another squeeze, Mary Eunice pursed her lips. “That’s awful, honey. That’s not fair to you. You deserve to get an education without having to worry about all of that.” She stroked the back of Ella’s hand. “You can stay here as long as you want.”

“This is exactly the kind of thing I have to tell the president about. He has to know this is completely unacceptable.” Lana curled her lip. “What does your mother have to say about all of this? Surely she’s not going to say it’s a good thing, that’d be unconscionable.” 

Ella shook her head. “No, but she’ll make it a whole thing about not blaming guns. The good guy with the gun. All of that.” Both Lana and Mary Eunice rolled their eyes in synchronization. “Yeah, right? You understand how I get tired of her. She’s getting  _ more _ conservative instead of less, and Dad doesn’t stick up for me… I’m the youngest, I’m the last one in the house, she’s on my case all the time. It just—It gets old, dealing with her. She’s even starting to use slurs now. Her and Dad got into this explosive fight when she called Aunt Julia the N-word.”

“Excuse me?” Mary Eunice and Lana exclaimed in unison.

A wry laugh fluttered from Ella. “Hey, Mimi, outrage is a new look for you.” Lana laughed, too, in spite of the circumstances, playfully swatting at Mary Eunice, who usually preferred to let Lana be socially aware while she calmed her down. “Yeah. She didn’t make that mistake again. But she’s done stuff like that for months, and just finally found his breaking point. She’s said some stuff about Aunt Terry, too—Okay, Granny, I know Terry is your favorite niece, but keep your earrings on. What are you going to do, throw hands with my mom?”

“I welcomed that woman into my family and I can throw her back out of it, too,” Lana seethed. 

Mary Eunice busied herself trying to console both of them. “Cupcake, you’re eighty-six. You would be lucky to throw a child’s size bowling ball. Susan is family now. She gave us our beautiful grandchildren, she’s a good cook, she’s a Chr-Easter Catholic. We couldn’t have asked for a better wife for Thomas.” 

“Oh, she’s not a Chr-Easter Catholic anymore. I’ve gotta catch y’all up. These proselytizers came by the house, I dunno, awhile ago. Baptists, I think? Anyway, they really sucked Mom up into their cult. Fire and brimstone and that sort of thing. It was awhile before the election. Since then, she hasn’t been very nice to be around.” Lana’s mouth curled downward at the corners. It had, indeed, been quite a long time since they had seen or heard much from Susan. They had passed it off that Susan was busy at home, busy at work, and it wasn’t her responsibility to care for Lana and Mary Eunice—she was just the daughter-in-law. Thomas was the one they relied on when they needed help, and Julia and Terry more than him when they weren’t traveling for Julia to give lectures about neurology across the country or performing surgeries at John Hopkins. “She dragged us all to her church once, but honestly it was pretty scary. Dad goes with her occasionally, now, but none of us kids will go.” 

Concerned blue eyes found Lana. Mary Eunice could no longer focus on her face; she was merely a blur. Slowly, she turned her head back to Ella. “Sweetheart, does your mother know you’re here? Would she want you to be here right now? With us?” Ella fidgeted with discomfort. “Does she know what happened at school, even?”

Ella sighed. “No. She doesn’t. I just told Dad I was walking here. She doesn’t like me to see anybody in the family anymore, or my friends, either. She says everyone is a bad influence. Dad fights with her a lot about that.” 

“But if you don’t go home tonight, she’ll have to know you’re here,” Mary Eunice pointed out gently. “We don’t want to upset anyone in your family.”

“Bullshit,” Lana interjected. Mary Eunice raised her eyebrows, releasing a patient breath. Of course Lana, in all of her righteous indignation, would insist upon fighting for Ella. “We don’t care who we upset. You have a right to see us and anyone else in the family. We’re not going to be around forever, you know.” Mary Eunice gave up attempting to pacify her. Lana was pissed and had every right to be. Mary Eunice preferred a less eventful life, but perhaps Lana’s way was better. They had done a lot for Thomas and his family in their days. Susan couldn’t conveniently forget that the moment her religion told her otherwise. “Does your father say anything about this to  _ you? _ Or does he just let you suffer?” 

Ella twiddled where she sat. “No. Look, he’ll be here with the malware software when he gets out of work, so you can talk to him then. I don’t really know anything—I just want to get away from Mom for awhile so I don’t have to listen to her babble on about AR-15s and how the rapture is going to leave all the women who don’t wear skirts.”

Mary Eunice made a face. “She believes  _ that? _ I don’t know  _ anyone _ who believes that, and I know some pretty religious people.”

“I try to avoid talking to her as much as possible, I don’t know what she believes. It’s annoying, that’s all I know.” The computer buzzed. “Good god, that thing sounds like a dying animal. It may well be on its last legs.” Ella got up. “I’ll get started rebooting it, and I’ll get Google Chrome and a screen-reader extension operating. Dad gets off in forty-five minutes.” 

Lana turned off the television. None of them had paid any attention to  _ Bonanza.  _ As Ella left the room, headed back into the office, Lana looked to Mary Eunice. “What the hell are we going to do?”

Mary Eunice patted her thigh, standing herself. “I’m going to make something substantial to feed our family for dinner.” Lana scowled, following Mary Eunice to the kitchen. Mary Eunice kept her voice hushed so Ella wouldn’t overhear. “Lana, I  _ know _ you’re upset, but… there really isn’t anything we can do about it, is there? It’s their lives. They have to follow what they think is best.” She reached into the cabinet and found some beef stroganoff sauce mix. “Hamburger Helper?” she asked, holding the box up to Lana. 

“No, beef stroganoff. Hamburger Helper is to the left.” Mary Eunice put it back in the cabinet and reached for the other box, this time landing on the Hamburger Helper. “We have to be able to do something. After everything we did for Thomas and Julia, it’s shitty of him to let his wife do this to our family. Ella’s clearly torn up about it.”

“It isn’t Thomas’s job to stop his wife from doing things. We’re not in the fifties anymore.” Mary Eunice poured out the Hamburger Helper. She couldn’t read the directions anymore, but she didn’t need them; she had made this enough times that she could make it in her sleep. “It  _ is _ his job to protect his daughter, and we can talk to him about that. But he doesn’t owe us anything, especially if it comes at the expense of his relationship with his wife.” Mary Eunice didn’t need to see Lana’s face to feel the animosity reverberating from her form. “Would you have left me if your mother had told you to?” 

Lana crossed her arms. “She did, and I didn’t.” Mary Eunice raised an eyebrow. “But that’s different! I was almost thirty-five before my mother did anything to put her hand in the fire for me. We  _ adopted _ Thomas—we spent  _ years _ and thousands of dollars convincing the state we were capable of being parents, just so those kids wouldn’t have to go into foster care. I paid for his tuition out of pocket, what wasn’t covered by scholarships. If I hadn’t done that, he’d probably still be paying loan debt, and there’s no way they would have that house because his credit would be shit. Okay, why the hell are you smiling?”

Mary Eunice laughed. “Your memory is pretty good when you’re spiteful.” She pulled out some ground beef from the freezer and put it in the skillet, warming up the stovetop. “If you recall,” she said gently, “Kit had to do a lot of convincing to get you to agree to all of that. And I had to convince you, too.” She stirred the beef, waiting for the skillet to heat up. “Children don’t owe their parents anything. He loves Susan. He loves the family they’ve built together. And he loves us. Sometimes love isn’t as black-and-white as we’d like it to be. You can love many things, even if those things seem to contradict one another.” 

“So you think we should just let this go?”

“No, I think we need to talk to Thomas about how his decisions are affecting Ella. He’s responsible for her. But we can’t make the conversation about us. It’s not about us anymore. Our story is over.” Mary Eunice stirred the beef in the skillet. “We did right by Thomas and Julia. They’re in their fifties. They’re both married. We’re done. It’s their time now. You’re not very good at letting go of the spotlight.” 

“I am so.”

“Please, you come out of retirement once a year to interview someone famous just so people remember who you are.” Lana’s face twitched in aggravation. “You’re not good at being irrelevant. I say that with love. Will you get the milk?” Lana obediently went to the refrigerator and placed it on the countertop. “We love Thomas and Susan and their kids. That’s our job. And we’re here for Ella, right? If she needs us, we’re here. She came here by choice, because she trusted us. She’s almost eighteen. She’s just got a year of school left. If she needs us, she can stay here with us.” 

Lana rested her hip against the countertop. “Why are you so smart?” she complained. “I want to be angry.” Mary Eunice giggled. “You always have such good reasons for me not to be angry. My righteous anger is all I have left. Why must you wound me so?” She reached for Mary Eunice’s body and caressed her hips. 

Another silly laugh fluttered from Mary Eunice’s lips. “We’re too old to be angry all the time. It makes our blood pressure go up. At our age, we’re just one political protest away from a stroke or a heart attack. Don’t you ever get tired of being outraged at the world all the time? You weren’t like this when we were younger. And there was arguably more to be mad about.”

Lana shrugged. “We were busy. We had everything going on with us, and the church, and neither of us were in a very good mental place. Then you got hurt, and it took you so long to fully recover—by then, I had my show, and I was still touring with my book. By the time that calmed down a little, Kit was sick, and we had to get our shit together to try to adopt the kids before he passed. Then we went from being happily childfree to raising two pre-teens who lost all  _ three _ of their parents, and spent the next few years trying to get them into a good place. We got them a good ways into college, and you had your cancer scare.” Lana’s brow furrowed. “What year was all that again? That was, like, our worst year.”

Thinking back, Mary Eunice remembered. “It was eighty-eight. I was spending all my time in the hospitals, then… After Earl died, I wanted to help people like him, with AIDS, but—well, you know.” 

“Right, they thought you had caught the bug. They still didn’t know very much then.” Lana crossed her arms. “God, we were so lucky. I know we’ve only got two breasts between the two of us, and they’re both mine, but—we were lucky.” 

A soft smile touched Mary Eunice’s face. “Yes, we were. I was lucky you didn’t let me give up. I would’ve missed a lot.” She considered for a moment as she stirred the browning beef. “When I was fifty, I thought fifty was as old as I could get. Now I’m eighty and I see how much I still didn’t know, then. How silly I was to think it was over. I’ve learned so much. Do you think we’ll make it to one hundred and look back and see how naive we are right now?” 

Lana cackled. “If I make it to a hundred, my brain will have turned to mush. There will be no memories left. I won’t even know I’m a hundred.” She watched the beef for Mary Eunice. “You’ve got about a minute before that stuff is gonna go from cooked to burnt.” Mary Eunice took it off of the stove and went to drain it. “But you get it. I didn’t have  _ time _ to be mad at the world then, through all of that. I was too busy being mad at God. The rest of the world was just white noise.”

“While I object to your choice of being mad at God… Yes, I understand. We didn’t get the chance to be very politically conscious until… Oh, 2005? After your mother died.”

“Right! We sort of started in the nineties, the early 2000s, but then we were worried about getting married when we finally could, and then Mama was sick. It wasn’t until after all that we could finally show some concern for politics. I’ve got a lifetime of outrage to get out of my system now.” 

“I appreciate that.” Mary Eunice put the beef in a pot with the Hamburger Helper, the milk, and the water and placed it on the stove. “But, maybe, you can  _ not _ be outraged at our family, and you can save all that energy for twatting the president? Because he obviously deserves it. Thomas—not so much.”

Lana put an arm around her. “I  _ guess _ . If I’m doing it for you, and for Ella. Right?” 

“Right.” Mary Eunice yawned, covering her mouth with one hand. “I’m tired just  _ thinking _ about having strong emotions. I don’t know how you do it.”

“It comes at great cost.” Lana squinted at her. “What’s your name, again?” Mary Eunice swatted her hands away with a laugh, stirring the pasta and waiting for it to come to a boil in the pot. “That stuff looks good. We haven’t had Hamburger Helper in a good while.”

Mary Eunice smiled. “I made it four days ago.” 

“Oh.” Lana’s face fell a little, but it promptly brightened back up. “Well, I like it, and if I can’t remember eating it, then I can’t get sick of it. I’ll let you know when it looks ready to eat.” She went to the fridge. “Do you want a pop?” Mary Eunice shook her head. “Alright. Hey, Ella?” she called, heading to the mouth of the kitchen and sticking her head out. “Do you want a Sprite, honey?” 

“Sure, Granny.” Lana took a Sprite from the refrigerator and carried it to Ella. She was waiting for the computer to load. “Hey, thanks. Mimi’s cooking Hamburger Helper?” Lana nodded. “Awesome, that’s the good stuff.” 

Lana patted her shoulder. “That’s what I told her.” She smiled. “Ella—I want you to know you can stay here as long as you need to. We’re here for you. If you don’t want to go home tonight, or tomorrow, or next week… Believe me, we have nothing better to do. We love you and we want you to be safe.”

Ella smiled. “I know, Granny.” She turned the computer chair around, facing Lana. “Dad just told me a few months ago, and I’ve been meaning to ask… Is it true you named me?” Lana blinked, surprised at the question. “I just asked him why I didn’t match the others. Not that I envy them—they have the worst names ever. But he said you picked it.” 

Lana’s nose crinkled. Ella was right; her sisters had the worst names ever. And the negative effect of Summer, Autumn, and Winter was exacerbated by their youngest sister, who got the perfectly ordinary name Eleanor. “Yeah, I did.” She leaned against the computer desk. “They only ever wanted three—no offense.” Ella brushed it off. “That was their plan all along, the dumb theme name thing. Don’t ask me what they were going to do if they had a son. But they didn’t have a good name for you. So your dad asked me.” 

“What made you pick Eleanor?” 

“That was Mary Eunice’s mother’s name. She always had some—some guilt, I suppose, that she didn’t have a daughter to name after her mother. That was the one desire she had that never reached fruition. So when he asked me, that was what I told him. Clearly he went with it.”

“Is that why I’m the favorite granddaughter?” Ella grinned cheekily, and Lana ruffled her hair, rolling her eyes at her impudence. “What happened to Mimi’s family?” Ella asked, a secondary, serious question. “I know there are pictures of me with Granny Helen, before she died. But I don’t remember ever meeting any of her family, except Baby Eunice.” 

Lana smiled, but it was a sad smile. “Mary Eunice’s parents died when she was very young. But she grew up with her cousins—Baby Eunice’s mom, Carol. You’ve met her. She was at our wedding, and so were Molly and James. We still see Carol sometimes. Molly lives in Cali.” 

“What happened to James?” 

Lana shrugged. “Kiddo, you’re lucky I’ve remembered this much information in this conversation. Don’t push your luck.” Ella giggled. 

From the kitchen, Mary Eunice called, “Lana? Are you coming back? I might be burning the noodles, I can’t see them well enough.” Lana gave Ella’s shoulder a squeeze and headed back into the kitchen where Mary Eunice stirred the pot of noodles. “Are they charred yet?”

Lana used the pasta spoon to get one egg noodle and blew it off. Then, she nibbled on it. “No, they’re just done. They’re… ripe?” 

“It’s pasta, it’s  _ al dente. _ ”

“You knew what I meant.” Lana turned off the cooktop. “Ella, when will your dad be here? The food’s ready.” 

“He’s coming!” Ella called back. As if on cue, the doorbell rang. 

Mary Eunice went to the door and opened it, and Thomas walked in. A broad smile crossed Mary Eunice’s face. “Hey, Timmy. I’ve got dinner ready for you.” 

He smirked in response. “Hey, Aunt Mary.” He hugged her. “I hear one of the womb fruits has been pestering you this afternoon.” She huffed a short laugh. He spun a disc between his fingertips. “Ella! I brought that malware service you said you needed. Did you need the computer for homework or something?” 

She shook her head. “Granny wants the computer to work.” Mary Eunice’s brow quirked at the vagueness of Ella’s assertion. “They had a bad virus. The internet was completely unusable. I guess Mimi couldn’t see what she was clicking and downloaded some things she didn’t intend to. But I’m downloading Chrome, and I’m going to add a screen-reader extension for Mimi.” She took the disc from him. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll get this loading. It’ll just take forty-five minutes or so, then the computer should be ready to go.”

“Great!” He caressed her shoulder. “Then we can go home. Your mom’s blowing up my phone. She saw the headline. I told her everything I knew, but she’ll be glad to hear from you.”

Ella grimaced. She didn’t say anything. Mary Eunice’s heart chipped at her silence. Lana finished setting the table. “Dinner’s ready, people.” Her voice carried a stern note, and Mary Eunice chewed the inside of her cheek, preparing herself for an uncomfortable dinner. “C’mon, guys, I’m starved.” She placed the platter of Hamburger Helper in the center of the table. Mary Eunice went to her side and waited. 

“Thanks, Mimi.” Ella’s voice was muted compared to the bright, chirpy notes she had offered them earlier, and she served herself a small portion. She had her soda with her. Thomas had a bottle of water with him, and he took a larger portion, apparently not noticing or not caring about Ella’s subdued behavior. “How was work, Dad?”

“Oh, it was great. All online lectures today. I got to talk in front of my computer wearing a shirt and tie and no pants. Those are my favorite days.” Mary Eunice smiled. Thomas reminded her of Kit in a lot of ways. She turned her head to try to see Lana’s face out of the side of her eye, but she couldn’t make it out. “So, Aunt Lana, what’s happening on the computer that is so urgent?” 

She cleared her throat. She hadn’t yet plunged her fork into her food. “I’m trying to set up an account on the Twitter so I can tell the president how inadequate I find his performance of late.” Thomas stopped chewing, and he paused beneath her gaze, a deer trapped in headlights; he had never lost his healthy fear of Lana’s firmest tone of voice.  _ Neither have I, _ Mary Eunice admitted to herself. Lana arched an eyebrow. “Do you have anything to say about that?” 

He gulped a dry swallow. “Dunno what I would have to say about that,” he mumbled, looking back down into his bowl. Ella shuffled her feet in the chair where she sat. “I guess Ella told you some of what Susan is going through.” His voice grew thin and hoarse. He didn’t take another bite. “It’s just a midlife crisis. She needs time. She goes through these phases.”

Mary Eunice touched the back of his hand. “We’re just concerned about all of you. We want to know if there’s anything we can do to help.” He inclined his eyebrows. “Does Susan know you’re here now?” 

A long silence stretched between them, before he admitted, “No. I told her Ella went home with a friend and I would pick her up when I got done with my classes.” 

“Thomas, I don’t know how to explain to you how  _ wrong _ it is to lie to your wife about where your daughter is,” Lana interjected. “Ella is her child. You should be able to tell her the truth.”

“Oh, I agree, but—” Thomas sighed. “It’s just less stressful on me if I don’t tell her the truth. She has some—some  _ inflammatory _ things to say about my family, and I get sick of hearing about it. It’s growing pains. She’ll be back on her kale smoothies and yoga soon enough.”

Ella whispered, “Dad… It’s been two and a half  _ years. _ She’s getting  _ worse. _ She’s kind of… kind of scary, actually.” She spun her fork in her noodles without ever taking a bite, just watching the patterns in the sauce. “It’s hard to be around her. I love her, but… The things she says aren’t nice. About Aunt Terry and Aunt Julia, about Mimi and Granny, about all of my friends at school.” 

“Honey, she’s just messed up since Winter graduated and went off to school. She’s facing having an empty nest. She found a way to cope.”

Mary Eunice’s brow quirked. “Being racist and homophobic is a coping mechanism? I know I’m old, but in the sixties, we just called that  _ bigotry. _ ” Lana patted her thigh under the table with approval. “Thomas—it’s not just about her. This is impacting Ella. And I’m sure it’s affecting you, too. You can’t think filling your marriage with lies is a good idea. And Lana’s right, she deserves to know where Ella is, that Ella is safe. That’s her child.” Thomas sucked in the inside of his cheek, shifting with discomfort. “You need to be honest with Susan. About all of it. What on earth could she be doing that’s so bad? She wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize your family.” 

He licked his lips. “Susan’s new dogmas are… leaning in a way that could be—” He cut himself off, and then he started again. “I have my fears and my concerns that Susan’s church leaders, if not the church organization itself, may be affiliated with the KKK.” Ella dropped her fork. Mary Eunice made a thin noise in the back of her throat. Lana clutched her drink with white knuckles. “I haven’t brought it up to her because I’m afraid the truth will destroy our marriage. It can’t be anything we can’t work out.”

Lana’s eyes narrowed. “If your wife is a member of the Klan, I think the chance to save your marriage was a bridge you burned a few miles back.”

“I knew you would say that, and that’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“And you’re attending this church?” Mary Eunice questioned. “Regularly?”

He shrugged. “Regularly enough. It’s uncomfortable. I don’t like it. And the minister raised hell because I was baptised as a baby, and I guess that’s a big no-no for racists. You have to be old enough to  _ choose _ how to be racist, or something.”

“No, that’s a rule for Protestants, and it doesn’t have anything to do with being a bigot—” Lana kicked Mary Eunice under the table, and she cut herself off before she could enter a long, theological ramble. “Not what we’re mad about. Right.” She cleared her throat. “Honey, you  _ need to find out _ what she believes. Does she even know how harmful this is? Is she just listening to her minister because she thinks he’s an authority figure? Is she willing to leave the church, or at least abandon some of their beliefs?” He grimaced. “Your problems don’t just go away because you ignore them.”

He cringed. “But what do I do if she says things I don’t want to hear? That’s my wife. I’m not going to walk away from—from a twenty-seven year marriage just because my wife changed religions. She’s still the same person.”

Lana’s brow furrowed. “She’s not the same person if she’s allowing her religion to change the way she sees you and your family. And if she’s allowing it to change her, it may well change you, too. You can’t let anyone compromise your morals, no matter how much you love them.” 

Thomas lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Look, no, it’s not that black-and-white. She’s not wrong about everything, okay? Not everything conservative is automatically horrible.” 

“The conservatives have opposed every civil rights movement in history,” Lana shot back. “Their golden boy Ronald Reagan stood back and prayed for as many gay people to die as possible before sending in the CDC to do a damn thing. I’d think you would remember that—how now we have evidence of him saying, ‘Look pretty and do as little as possible.’ It was conservatives that picketed outside the church the day we were married—you called the police then to have them removed so we could walk out of the damn building. The conservatives had me in a back alley paying an unlicensed doctor for an abortion that nearly killed me! The conservatives were the ones who battled us for  _ years _ in court trying to keep us from taking custody of you and Julia, and they’re the ones who put that monster in the White House! So don’t come into this house where  _ my _ girlfriend was murdered and tell me what conservatives are doing right.” 

All of the color bled from Thomas’s face. “Trump isn’t a monster, okay? He was just the best candidate in an awful situation—” Three pairs of eyes regarded him with horror, even Mary Eunice’s unfocused gaze. “He took what he was given in a broken system and made it work. None of us voted for him because we wanted to.”

The drop of a pin could’ve ended the silence in the room. “ _ You _ voted for the toupee-wearing Cheeto freak?” Lana asked, her voice slow. “You have gay moms!”

“You have a black sister!” Mary Eunice interjected. 

“You have a gay daughter!” Ella snapped. Then, the silence consumed the room for a new reason as the eyes all moved to her. She fidgeted. “That wasn’t how I was planning on telling all of you, but…” She dropped her eyes to the floor. “Yeah,” she finished lamely. 

Giving a sweet, comforting smile, Mary Eunice reassured, “Honey, we’re so proud of you.” Lana echoed her sentiment, but Thomas wore an expression of utter horror. Mary Eunice frowned at him. “Do you have anything you’d like to say, Thomas?”

He cleared his throat. “Of course. I’m proud of you, Ella.” It wasn’t sincere. “And I’m sorry if I spoke out of turn. But I stand by how I voted, and I’d do it again.” 

“You’d do it again,” Lana repeated skeptically. He nodded once. For once, he held his ground instead of caving to Lana’s pressure; he held these convictions firmly. “In spite of what your father had to go through to marry Alma… In spite of what  _ we  _ went through to try to protect you then, what we had to endure to get married not even twenty years ago—”

“Times have changed.” 

“Really?” Lana repeated, her eyes widening with incredulity. “There are immigrant babies dying in American concentration camps. There are thousands of American soldiers being kicked out of the military for being transexual. It’s still legal in every state to perform conversion therapy on an adult and legal in most states to perform it on a minor. It’s still legal to deny gay couples the right to adopt or for businesses to refuse service to us. Rapists are being let off on probation or not convicted at all while nonviolent offenders spend decades behind bars for carrying some damn  _ grass _ . Women’s reproductive rights are being overturned across the country and illegal abortions are at their peak. Times are changing, but things are as bad as they’ve ever been.” 

“Not all of those things are bad things!” Thomas insisted. “People shouldn’t bring their children into this country illegally! They ought to know bad things are going to happen. Soldiers with certain medical needs have  _ always _ been expressly prohibited from service because of the risks they contribute.” His knuckles blanched white as he clutched the kitchen table. “Private businesses are allowed to hold beliefs and deny customers; there’s nothing wrong with that.” He released a heavy breath. “And, okay,  _ I’m sorry _ about what happened to you. I  _ know _ that makes it personal. But things are different now with these relaxed regulations. Women are killing their babies all willy-nilly just for the hell of it. People need to learn to make the best of bad situations and take blessings when they come. You don’t just throw a child into the garbage because it’s inconvenient for you.” 

Lana was silent, her mouth hanging open. Ella started, “Dad—” but her voice fell short; she didn’t even know where to begin to tell him the number of lines he had just crossed. 

Mary Eunice pushed herself back from the table. She cleared her throat. Bleary eyes refused to focus on Thomas. He was in her center blind spot. She preferred it that way; she would have found it incredibly difficult to look him in the eye for the shame coursing through her. “Get the fuck out of our house.” He gaped at her. She didn’t know if he was more shocked at the instruction or the swear word. She repeated herself, voice pulsing and ragged with emotion, to ensure he understood. “Get. The fuck. Out.” 

A discordant sound grated in his throat. He stood and pushed his chair under the kitchen table like a gentleman. “Okay. C’mon, Ella, it’s time to go home.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” 

He didn’t make eye contact. “Don’t turn this into an argument. You’re coming with me. We have to go home.” 

Lana swept out of her chair and put both hands on Ella’s shoulders. “She doesn’t have to go anywhere.” Her voice was cold. “But you’re going to want to remove yourself from my line of sight.”

“I’m not leaving without my daughter.” 

“I’m not going with you!” Tears rolled down Ella’s cheeks. “Did you hear yourself just now? What you said to her?” She wiped her tears away with the sharp knuckles of her fingers. “What if it were me? Would you say that to me, too?” Her mouth was a distressed, wet gash. “I already didn’t think I was safe with Mom—but you’re just as bad! What’s going to happen when you tell her I came out? Are you going to let her ship me off to a church camp to pray the gay away? You don’t have enough of a spine to stand up for me!” 

“Ella, please—”

“No!” Her chin chattered. “I turn eighteen in three months. I can get emancipated before then if you turn it into a fight. I’m staying  _ here. _ ” 

He huffed a breath. “What do you think I’m supposed to tell your mother? That I left you here to spend the night without any pajamas or even your toothbrush?” 

Lana set her jaw. “We have toothbrushes and pajamas. Surprisingly, we’re still quite capable of meeting basic needs without misogyny and homophobia and racism to boot.” 

He gave Mary Eunice a pleading look. “Aunt Mary,  _ please _ —” She pointed to the front door, not saying another word; she had said everything she had to say to him. She wouldn’t say that nasty word again. She already was going to have to pray a couple rosaries to overcome this event, and she would add no more to that number. Thomas wore his saddest look. He turned on his heel and marched toward the door. 

It slammed closed behind him, echoing the finality of his exit. 

The air shivered with tension. Ella licked her lips as Lana wiped away her tears, gazing down at her red-rimmed eyes and puffy cheeks. Ella sniffled. “I didn’t know you knew that word, Mimi. I’ve never even heard you curse before.”

Lana’s brow quirked. “It’s been forty years since she last used that word.”

Mary Eunice crossed herself. “Yes.” Heading to Ella’s side, she placed her hand over Lana’s on her shoulder. “It takes a particularly horrible occasion to use such an awful word.”

Ella looked up at them. “When was the last time?” she asked. 

Mussing her hair, Lana shook her head. “We don’t talk about the last time. That’s how bad it was.” She tucked locks of brown hair out of Ella’s eyes. “Are you okay, darling? I’m so sorry he upset you.” Neither of them had ever thought Thomas would turn against the way he was raised, the way he was  _ born. _ His family had worked so hard at keeping him alive and healthy and thriving. His parents—the two mothers, the father, the two adoptive mothers, the whole colony—had battled obstacle after obstacle to provide him a life worth living, and he had turned against them and their years of labor. 

A quiet sigh breathed from between her lips. “Honestly… I’m not surprised.” She gave a final sniffle. “That’s how I knew to record him.” She took out her phone, opened up the screen, and pressed play on the video. There was Thomas on the screen over his bowl of cooling Hamburger Helper, verbally lambasting Lana, whose poker face faded into shock with each passing word. 

Mary Eunice’s brow quirked at the sound of his voice again. “Why would you record that?”

“Oh—I’m going to send it to Aunt Julia and Aunt Terry. So they know. And Aunt Terry has a group chat with the other seven, so she can pass it along. All’s has to happen is for Uncle Rex to post it online and report it to Harvard—with Uncle Rex being such a big name actor, Dad’ll be in a lot of hot water. They can’t let him go because of tenure, but there will definitely be some pressure on him.”

Lana raised her eyebrows, impressed at the speed with which Ella had come up with the scheme and the absolute effectiveness of it. She had concocted some malicious conspiracies in her day to get what she wanted or needed from people, but this was impressive. “If I were a better person, I would scold you and tell you not to jeopardize people’s careers over their political beliefs.” Ella worried her lower lip between her teeth, still clutching her phone as she looked up at Lana. “But I’m not. I’m impressed. So do your worst. As for me… I still haven’t twatted the president.” 

Ella laughed. She sent the video to Julia and Terry, and then she followed Lana into the office, where Windows 95 was all shiny and new again with its impressive malware and Google Chrome. Lana took the computer chair. “Okay, so this time you’re not going to click the blue one. You’re gonna click the circular icon, the one with the colors.”

“Am I gonna get bombarded by penises again?” 

“No, I got rid of all the penises.” 

With her reassurance, Lana clicked on the icon. The browser loaded ever so slowly, and then the Google logo displayed on the screen. A bubble popped up. “What the hell is that? Is it gonna show dicks if I click it?” 

“No, no, that’s your screen reading extension for Mimi. If you enable it, it will read what’s on the screen aloud for you. Since Mimi can’t read anymore, I thought that might be helpful for her, so she doesn’t get lost on the internet and accidentally download another virus.”

Lana clicked it. A robotic voice began to read aloud. “Oh, no, that’s super annoying, make it stop.”

“Just click stop.” 

Lana did. The voice fell silent. “Huh.” This new world overwhelmed her with its technology. “In my day, the books didn’t read themselves.” Ella snorted. “I know, uphill both ways in the snow. How do I find the Tweeter?” 

Following Ella’s pointing finger, she clicked on the box for the URL. “Okay, type in twitter dot com.” 

“What about the whole—the whole H, P, T, colon, double slash, and more gibberish that has to come before it?”

“No, no, we don’t do that anymore. The internet is much smarter now. Twitter dot com is all you need.” Lana obeyed her commands, grumbling more under her breath about the olden days. “Do you have an email address?” Ella asked.

“The answer is yes, but I have no idea what it is.” Lana turned the desk chair. “Hey, Mary Eunice? What’s our email address? Do you remember it?” 

Mary Eunice flicked off the lights in the kitchen, having finished cleaning things up and putting them away, and followed the sound of Lana’s voice into the office. “We’ve got two email addresses. Your professional one and the one you made when you got drunk in 2006 and decided we should have a profile on the Facebook.” 

Lana’s brow quirked. “What’s the second one?” 

Mary Eunice sighed, crossing her arms. “Carpetmuncher420 at hotmail.” Lana and Ella both chuckled, the latter out of shock, but Mary Eunice’s face didn’t share in their amusement; perhaps she had never outgrown the chastity instilled in her by the church. 

Covering her mouth with her hand, Ella raised her eyebrows. “Okay, so we’ll use the  _ other  _ one. What is it?” 

“LanaWintersTV at hotmail,” Mary Eunice said.

“Click sign up.” Lana did so. “Now, you’re going to put in your email address. It’s case sensitive.”

Adjusting her glasses, Lana typed in her email address. “Of course it wants a password. Why does everything want a password? Can’t it just scan my eyeball or something and know that it’s me?”

“Just make it something you can remember,” Ella said. 

“Easier said than done,” Lana grumbled. “Come back when you’re my age and see how well you can remember your passwords.” 

Opening the desk drawer, Ella took out a tiny steno book. “Here. Just write down your passwords in…” As she opened it up, the first sheet had a long list of usernames and passwords for various sites, the pages slightly yellowed and crinkled with age. “…here. Looks like you beat me to it. But on the bright side, you have the password to your email address that you’re going to need in a few minutes!” 

Mary Eunice chuckled. “Won’t you look at that? We forgot that we had a tool to keep us from forgetting our passwords.”

“That checks out,” Lana said with a nod. Ella picked up a pencil and wrote Twitter with a colon. She added the email address. “Okay. Password: April281937. Capital A.”

“It wants you to add a special character.”

“What the hell is a special character? It’s difficult enough to remember the capital A.”

“Just put an exclamation point on the end. Or a tilde. You seem more like a tilde type of person.”

“Ugh. Okay.” Lana added a tilde, and Ella scribbled down the password in the steno book. “Now what’s this other nonsense it wants from me? A username? Isn’t that my email address? And why do I need a different username and screen name?”

Ella shook her head. “Not exactly. That’s your at.” Lana looked up at her in disbelief. “That’s what people will type in if they want to tag you in something. And your screen name is what people will see you as. Now, if I were you, I would probably make your username @LanaWintersTV, since that matches your professional email address, and then your screen name would be just your name. But you can make it whatever you want. Just don’t go for carpetmuncher420.” 

“That was one time! I don’t even remember it.” Lana followed Ella’s recommendations. “Okay, so my biography. What goes there? What should people know about me?” 

“Make it recognizable, but keep it short. Like, ‘Retired telejournalist and author.’”

“Should I mention my family?”

“You could say your Uncle Rex’s aunt. That would get you some followers, since he’s a dreamboat star.” 

“But that’s not fair. I have eight nieces and nephews. Why would I only mention the famous one?”

Mary Eunice chuckled. “Lana, you have ten nieces and nephews.”

“I do? Oh—right, Roger’s kids. I always forget about them. Frieda’s bunch stole all of my aunt love before Roger and Beth started having them.” Lana’s fingers drummed at the keyboard as she tried to think about what to add. “What about—wife, aunt, and grandmother?” Ella and Mary Eunice both voiced their approval. Lana typed it in, giving a nod as she did so. “Okay. I don’t want a picture of me. How do I make that go away?”

“Oh, no, you need a picture of you if you want to verify your account later.”

“If I want to do what now?”

“Twitter has this process where public figures can have their accounts verified—so it tells anyone who sees your account that you are who you say you are. That’s how we know that the guy posting tweets as Donald Trump is  _ actually _ Donald Trump, and not just some person with too much time on their hands pretending to be him.” 

“Do I have to wait to go through all that before I can twat him?”

“No, no. It’ll take awhile for your verification to go through. But you want a profile picture.” 

Lana sighed. “Do I have to use the ChapSmat thing to do it?” This was growing more and more complicated. It was a worthy cause, twatting the president, but she was old and it was getting close to her bedtime. 

Ella giggled. “No—and it’s SnapChat. Here, we can probably find a good picture of you on Google.” She reached over Lana and typed in her name in the search bar. “Scroll to images, and… There you are!” Lana’s eyes fluttered at the sight of all of those pictures of her. “See, most of the news that has ever been published has been posted online now, including everything you used to write for the  _ Boston Globe. _ ” A deep frown set onto Lana’s face. She definitely didn’t want anyone reading what she wrote for the  _ Globe _ before Briarcliff—it was garbage. “But here, this is your professional headshot from your interview in 2012. Do you like this one?” 

“Yeah, sure. I don’t look old there.”

Mary Eunice massaged her shoulders. “You only grow prettier with age.”

Lana snorted. “Says the woman who started losing her vision in 2010.”

“Oh, Granny, you look fine.” Ella saved the image to the computer and uploaded it as Lana’s profile picture. “There you go. You’ll need a cover image, too. Do you like this picture of you and Mimi?”

“Yeah, they need to know I’m a married woman.”

“I don’t want to be on your Twatter! This is your crusade, not mine.” 

Ella raised her eyebrows. “Okay, Granny, there’s not going to be any single lesbians in their eighties fighting for your hand in marriage over Twitter. But, Mimi, it’s fine. You’re already public. Your picture won’t take anything away from that. You’re not a target anymore.” She dragged the image to Lana’s cover photo, a picture of the two of them together in the street holding hands. “Alright. Now your date of birth and your location—nobody has to be able to see it but you.”

“Good. I don’t want them to know how old I am.”

“But if you let them see your birthday, they may wish you a happy birthday. You don’t have to display the year.” Lana considered, and then she agreed. Ella took the mouse and arranged the settings for her. “Okay. Are you ready? We’re going to make it live. One, two, three!”

The computer proceeded to load. “This is a surprisingly slow process,” Lana remarked.

“Your computer is really old. It takes it a hot minute to decide how it wants to do things.” Then, the screen displayed. “Look at that. Who do you want to follow? There’s a whole bunch of celebrities that are available. Uncle Rex has a Twitter for his movies, and Aunt Julia has one for John Hopkins where she shares research.”

Lana pursed her lips. “Can I follow you?” 

“My Twitter is really embarrassing.” Lana shrugged, and Ella took her to it. The username was @EllaIsGay, screen name Ella with emojis of two girls kissing on either side. Lana raised her eyebrows. “I told you it’s embarrassing. It’s mostly me tweeting about the celebrities I like.” 

The latest tweet said,  _ Some mf brought a gun to school, so I’m gonna hang with my grandmas _ with a string of emojis. “Aw, you’re so sweet.” But the tweet before had the image of an actress in a somewhat revealing dress, and the caption said,  _ Cate Blanchett can Get It. _ After that was a photograph of a curly-haired woman sitting cross legged and a link to an interview with her, and Ella had captioned it,  _ Helena Bonham Carter could kidnap me and I wouldn’t complain. _ “Ella, honey, these women are all twice your age…” 

“Unfortunately they’re all older than that.” Lana and Mary Eunice both looked at her in mingled horror and confusion. “What? Gay awakenings don’t happen in secret lesbian bars anymore. They happen by watching middle-aged women in the movies.” Ella navigated back to Lana’s Twitter profile. “Okay. What do you want your first tweet to be? Are we tweeting the president?” 

“I should introduce myself first.” Lana sucked her lower lip as she opened a tweet. “How do I make it carbon copy you?”

“Okay, the word is  _ tag.  _ And you put in my at. So @EllaIsGay.” As Lana typed it, Ella’s screen name appeared, and she clicked it. “There. Now I’m tagged and you can say whatever you want.”

Lana grimaced, tilting her head in deep thought. Then, she typed,  _ My granddaughter Ella made me the Twitter. Hello world.  _ She tweeted it. Ella took out her phone and retweeted it. Lana’s computer blinged. “Why is it making noise at me? I don’t want it to make noise. Make it stop making noise.”

Mary Eunice touched the side of the monitor to turn down the volume. “There. No more noise.” The computer was silent as another notification appeared, as Ella replied from her phone,  _ Love you, Granny _ with a heart emoji. 

“Aw… Love you, too, Ella.” Lana rumpled her hair. “So I’ve got what I want to say to the president right here.” She opened up her notebook and flipped through the pages. 

Ella tilted her head. “Granny, you’re not going to be able to fit all of that in a tweet. You can only use 280 characters—y’know, letters and spaces.” She looked through the pages of what Lana had written. “It would take hours to create a string of tweets long enough to support all that. You have to condense it down into something we can squeeze into a tweet or two. Like, say… a bulleted list?” Another notification appeared. “Oh, look at that. Uncle Rex followed you and retweeted your greeting. You’re about to get a lot of followers.” As Ella said it, the people began to follow her. 

“If they’re not the president, I don’t want to talk to them right now.” Lana opened up the tweet. “So a bulleted list. Children in concentration camps, healthcare, ineffective gun control, failing criminal justice system, collapsing infrastructure, school to prison pipeline, institutional racism and misogyny, wasting tax dollars by pouring them into the military, the failure to support Puerto Rico, failure to acknowledge climate change—” Ella held up a hand to slow her down. “What? I can keep going.”

“I know you can, but Twitter can’t. Pick three or five of those. And you can tag the president, but your message will be seen by everybody who is following you, so it should sound pretty broad—no, no, no—” It was too late. Lana had already tweeted,  _ @realDonaldTrump, you’re a moron. _ “Oh, boy.”

“What? It’s short and it got my point across. Oh, no, I didn’t cite any sources.”

Mary Eunice stepped behind her. “Lana,  _ what _ did you send to the president?” 

“I just told him he’s a moron. It’s true. He probably already knows it. But since I’ve laid the groundwork, I can follow up with some evidence. How do I add to it?” 

Ella gave a nervous chuckle. “Click the little bubble. That lets you reply.” The notifications kept blinging. Everyone was replying to Lana’s tweet, both positively and negatively, and she rapidly began to gain followers. She was completely oblivious. She replied,  _ Babies in cages and guns at schools. The ocean is boiling and our bridges are collapsing. What is being done to protect America’s future? Shame on this administration. _ “See, that one is a little more tame.”

“What’s all the little pop-up bubbles?”

“Those are people who are following you and interacting with what you’re tweeting.” Lana clicked on one that popped up. “See, she says she’s a really big fan of yours. You could follow her back. It would make her really happy.” Lana did so. She clicked on the next pop-up. “Whoa.”

Lana cringed. “Ew.” The tweet read,  _ In her 80s but id still lick that ass like its 1965, she fine. _ “I thought you said nobody would be vying for my hand in marriage.”

“No, I said no  _ lesbians _ would be. That’s a man.” Ella took the mouse away from her to block the person who had sent the tweet. 

Mary Eunice sighed. “Men are so disappointing.” 

“Yeah,” Ella echoed glumly. “Even my dad.” 

“Oh, honey.” Lana pushed back from the computer to hug her. “Yes, even your dad.” She kissed Ella’s forehead. “I have never known a man who didn’t let me down. Men are disappointments. Even the good ones.” She didn’t have anything else she wanted to say to the world on Twitter, but Ella stilled her hand. “What? I twatted the president. Now I just have to wait for his response, but it’s late. He’s probably in bed, sleeping soundly and not worrying about the world at large.” 

Ella raised her eyebrows. “Just so you know, he probably  _ won’t _ respond. But his fanbase definitely will… and is, right now.” She was already getting an influx of hate tweets directed at her, followed by a stream of people coming to her defense. “But actually, I’d like a picture of the three of us to go on my Twitter… if you both don’t mind.”

Lana grinned. “I’d be honored.” She got up and dragged Mary Eunice by the waist into the picture, ignoring her fussy little complaints about not looking her best. “You always look your best,” Lana insisted. “You can’t see me anymore, but I can see you. I know you’re still as beautiful as you were the day I met you.” 

“She uses her blindness to devalue my opinions about how pretty she is,” Mary Eunice pouted to Ella. “I love you anyway,” she promised Lana, and they exchanged a kiss. 

Ella held up her front camera, and they all three squeezed in and smiled. “There. Now everybody knows who my grandmas are.” She posted it online and tagged Lana’s Twitter account, and Lana logged off of the computer. “Will you remember how to get back on Twitter tomorrow?”

Lana laughed. “I might not know any of this happened tomorrow,” she joked. “But I’m sure you’ll help me out…  _ After _ you get home from school and get all your homework done. There are rules at Granny’s and Mimi’s house, too.” 

“I think I can cope with that.” Ella hugged both of them. “Thank you. I don’t know where I’d be without the both of you.” 

Lana and Mary Eunice embraced, wrapping their arms around one another with Ella sandwiched in the middle. Mary Eunice kissed the crown of her head. Lana said, “We love you, too, sweetheart. More than you’ll ever know.” Ella would never know the rejection they had faced as young people, even in a world fraught with peril. Their door would always be open for her. The world was kinder and more accepting than ever, and they stood there in their family cluster, praying to see a brighter future on the horizon. 


End file.
